Over the top: The Prime Rib Guy builds big flavor

Wednesday

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Prime Rib Guy cooks one thing and cooks it well — to medium rare.

On July 21, “The Prime Rib Guy” Mike Lovrekovic set up his 30-foot rig at Harley-Davidson of Panama City Beach for Bike Night.

“It’s all quality stuff. I’m not a chicken tenders with French fries kind of guy. We do one thing and we do it well,” Mike said. “I do nothing but prime rib. The thing about prime rib is you got to get it just right first time. Once you overcook, it tastes like grandmother’s roast beef.”

He has cultivated a following during the last couple of Bike Nights, the third Thursday of the month at Harley, 14700 Panama City Beach Parkway.

“Everything in here is stainless,” said Mike, standing at 6-foot-3 under the 8½-foot ceiling. “See first-class food out of a first-class rig.”

The rig’s “arsenal” includes a smoker, two refrigerators with freezers, three microwaves, two rice cookers and three Crock Pots, as well as a three-compartment sink with hot water and a separate hand-washing station.

All of the food is prepared and cooked on the rig, beginning with the prime rib — as early as 4 a.m.

“The smoker has 15 racks that hold 500 pounds food — I have tried it,” said Mike, who gets the prime rib from Kelley Foods of Elba, Ala. “They range from 16 to 20 pounds. I hand-inject it with marinade and I have to rub it with seasoning and then slow smoke it at a low temperature with pecan wood.”

Prime Rib is from the beef rib primal cut, and the marbling of the fat in the muscles give it the most flavor and moisture. After several hours, he pulls the meat off still rare. Prime rib usually is served medium rare, but Mike can heat it up more in the microwave.

“I researched and developed the time to heat it back up to the customers’ liking,” Mike said. “We’ve got it down to a science. I can cook for a customer rare to well-done. I like mine medium rare and she likes her steak well done.”

His wife, Tammy, 5-foot-4, who makes use of the rig’s stepping stool, has enjoyed educating people’s palates on prime rib.

“Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t know how to eat prime rib,’” she said. “We are asked all the time, ‘Is that pork?’”

Mike adjusted the fan and temperature control above our heads so we could hear better. The sun beat down outside, but the rig, named “Kate,” was keepin’ her cool.

“I’m a huge Doc Holliday fan from the movie ‘Tombstone’ with Big Nose Kate, and this rig has a four-foot nose,” Mike explained.

Condos to cooking

The Prime Rib Guy has been catering about three years, but he started designing the rig about a year ago after he resigned from Yates Construction.

“I was an area manager for a construction company that built about 11 condos on the beach. Look out the window and you can see one of the condos I built. When we were finished building, we would have a top out party,” said Mike, who pointed to the view of the condos across Panama City Beach Parkway. “I built Calypso, Grand Panama and Celadon.”

A topping out ceremony traditionally takes place when the last beam is placed on the top of the structure during construction, completing the framework for the building.

“I wanted to do something special and bought rib eye for 410 people. I lucked out and got it right the first time. That was 12 years ago. Since then I have literally served well over 10,000 people,” Mike said.

The rig was built in January and the equipment was installed in March.

“I have a 50 amp/10,000 watt generator, and I can run everything off of it. I designed it for festival set-ups and large catering events,” Mike said. “I can do big business, from 10 to 500 people, weddings, retirement dinners, golf tournaments, top out parties, corporate lunches, and I’ve served Adam Putnam, the Commissioner of Agriculture. He loves our prime rib.”

The Prime Rib Guy gets some help in the summertime from his 13-year-old daughter, Bristol Lovrekovic — when she isn’t playing softball. This month, she competed in the USFA World Series at Frank Brown Park.

Tammy and Mike had to miss Bristol’s game on July 21 when she played in the USSSA Nationals in Destin.

“They won, so she’s happy,” said Mike, a proud dad of two daughters — the eldest is 26 and married. “She helps; we all work together. In the summertime, it’s pretty much me and Bristol, then me and Tammy.”

Bristol also enjoys talking to the customers.

“That’s our life — softball and prime rib,” Tammy said.

Prime Rib Menu

A TV screen by the outside counter shows pictures of the dishes on the menu — a product of a family brainstorming session on the way to a softball tournament in Tallahassee.

“Mike started just cooking large slabs of meat and baked potatoes, but when we got the food unit we needed to come up with alternate recipes,” Tammy said. “The Prime Rib Wraps are really big and not real heavy, especially in the summertime. Everything we do is so grandiose — like the rig.”

The Prime Rib Lunch Cut (with a baked potato) is still the most popular. I tried a bite of mine medium rare, and it melted in my mouth. It was easy to see why people are balancing plates in parking lots and at street festivals.

“We serve it with a plastic fork and knife and it cuts just fine,” said Mike, who also serves it with a delicious homemade horseradish garlic cream sauce. “I cooked for over 400 people at Alys Beach a few months ago at Digital Graffiti.”

The Prime Rib Guy also has served at the SAME Golf Tournament at Holiday Golf Club in Panama City Beach, Friday Fest and Applied Research Associates in downtown Panama City, and Exelis at VentureCrossings adjacent to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. He will be set up in The News Herald parking lot, 501 W. 11th St., in Panama City from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday.

“It’s pretty much all local, but I have gigs coming up in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama,” said Mike, who sets up three to four days a week when he’s not at home in the Sandhills by Little Blue Pond.

His Prime Rib Etouffee has silenced even the toughest critics.

“I have cooked etouffee for 30 years doing shrimp and crawfish etouffee, and then when we started The Prime Rib Guy, it just seemed like a natural deal to try this,” said Mike, who learned from a lady in Beaux Bridge, La. “It’s by far probably one of the most popular on the menu. It’s cool to have someone from Beaux Bridge, La., come here and taste a spoon and say, ‘I’m back home again.’”

He starts with a roux, then adds the celery, peppers and onions to the sauce and mixes in chunks of prime rib before serving over rice.

Mike also serves Prime Rib Chunks over Cheese Grits, made with Velveeta in a rice cooker.

The etouffee was good — with a little smokiness of the meat and little spiciness that creeps up from the sauce, but I preferred the straight Prime Rib, because the flavor is too good to mask.

The Smoked Prime Rib Dip was a surprising favorite.

“I took the part of the ends he doesn’t use and ground them up fine and added things and let it chill,” Tammy said. “I’m not usually a big fan of horseradish but I really like it in here. Put it in a bowl with crackers and pickles and dip it — amazing. We have even seen Prime Rib Dip spread on prime rib.”

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